I'm So Sorry
by AlexTuesday
Summary: When Bill Cipher tries to bring about the end of the world prematurely, Dipper and Mabel find themselves at the front line. But when the dust settles, the twins find themselves forced to go home, forever changed and struggling to deal with what they've done.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Oh hey everyone, it's my first Gravity Falls fanfiction. For those who were expecting batjokes fics, I'm sorry. I'm working on it. For everyone who who doesn't know me, I'm Alex, and I write AUs, sometimes very messed up AUs.

This is one of them. I read Home Not Home (ao3) and An Outsider's Look at the Pines Twins (ffnet) and I really liked the idea of Mabel and Dipper going home to their parents while being really messed up from the near-apocalypse. I love writing messed up characters.

This ignores a lot of the episodes - while it contains the events of several episodes and storylines, they are done out of order or in different ways. It's told in flashbacks - it'll start with Dipper and Mabel going home, and switch to flashbacks to talk about how they defeated Bill and what they dealt with.

 **Note** : This story has some mentions of blood, harm, abuse and trauma. Characters are subjected to mental and physical nightmare realms. There are a few incidences of non-suicidial self-harm (defacing and creating marks). Please read at your own risk and take care of yourself.

* * *

Two and a half weeks after Jack and Julia Pines send their twin children to Gravity Falls, Oregon, the whole town and much of the surrounding area completely falls off the map.

They'd received a couple of phone calls at the start of the visit - they hadn't been completely sure about sending their kids to their reclusive uncle, but they'd needed some space, and the twins needed to get away and outside. Stanford, according to Jack's father, Sherman, had been a scientist, and was a good person, even if he'd gotten a bit odd over the years. The kids had been fine. Enjoying themselves.

Still. One day they'd been expecting a call, and it hadn't come. They'd left it until the next day, wondering if perhaps the kids had merely gotten carried away and forgotten to call.

But when they picked up the phone and called Stanford, the tone just dialed, dialed without going to an answering machine or being picked up. They left it for an hour or so, and tried again.

The phone just toned on.

They tried some family friends, and it went through. They tried their cell phones, and still the line toned.

Jack could see his wife beginning to become nervous. He dialed again and listened to the tone as she looked up the number of the "Mystery Shack". It dialed without break. Julia tore apart the dish of paper scraps on the phone stand, looking for the number of a man named "Soos" who Mabel had said had looked after them once or twice.

The number dialed. Julia looked up the number of the Gravity Falls police station. No answer. The library. No answer.

Julia pulled up a list of businesses in Gravity Falls, and they sat at the table, calling every grocery store, clothing outlet and supply shop that they could. There was nothing but the dial tone.

Then they looked up the next town over, and the one after that and the one after _that_. By the time they'd gotten about fifteen towns over, the sun was going down, they'd missed work and both were crying, tears streaming down their faces and hands trembling as they held their phones.

Finally, a line picked up, a small town about an hour and a half away from Gravity Falls. The voice on the other end was frazzled and hurried, and Julia near sobbed into the receiver.

"Hello? I'm trying to contact Gravity Falls. Mm-my children are visiting a relative aan-and I can't get ahold of them." Julia said.

Jack leans forward, hears the silence on the other end of the line.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am." Came the saddened answer. "But I think Gravity Falls is _gone_."

* * *

When the twins were five years old, Mabel named her brother Dipper.

He'd loved spaceships, the universe, the stars. Their father had taken them out onto the lawn at night and shown them the constellations through an old telescope.

"Do you recognize that one?" Jack had asked, showing them the Big Dipper, situated in the sky.

Mabel's answering squee had been all the answer he'd needed. That, and she'd slapped her brother's forehead.

Her brother Marvin lowered his gaze, tugging his bangs over the birthmark. Mabel took little notice.

"It's like you're the Big Dipper except I was born first so I'm bigger except it doesn't look like the Little Dipper so maybe you're just a Dipper, Dipper, ha, ha!" Mabel's energy had never known any boundaries and never would.

Marvin smiled, a true smile, one that was rare even at his age.

Dipper. Thought Jack. Hopefully that wouldn't last too long.

* * *

It hit the news the next day. A chunk of Oregon a hundred square miles or so had suddenly become completely impenetrable. It glowed a bit, arched over the trees like a dome. Some trucks had run into it and been completely totaled. Locals could walk right up and place their hands against it, but they could not go through.

Jack and Julia watched the news footage with a horrible, horrible feeling. They'd already called the Piedmont police, and some police or forest troopers or federal agents or someone from Oregon. They'd been told to wait.

They watched footage of birds passing through the barrier with no resistance. They watched bullets bounce off a wall that could barely be seen. They watched people try to dig under it, fly over top. They shuddered at the horrible images of houses torn in half, the dome's edge having sliced right down the middle.

At some point, a reporter watching the barrier saw someone run up from the other side, banging their fists against that invisible wall. The man yelled, but nothing could be heard.

Jack and Julia watched as _something_ the size of a horse and a hundred times more dangerous - something made of black fur, claws and teeth - came tearing out of the trees and ripped the man to pieces, right on live television.

The world got a lot scarier after that.

* * *

Dipper found the third journal within days of getting to Gravity Falls.

He wasn't afraid to admit it - Mabel had fit right in like she had been living there her whole life. Dipper had not.

So the journal - it's strange, but intriguing. He doesn't really believe it at first, but he does very quickly. He'll probably never gain a fondness for gnomes.

The journal is like a hand reaching down from the dark. It whispers _take my hand and I will show you great things_.

There is nothing he regrets about taking that hand.

There is nothing he regrets more.

* * *

It takes five months for the twins to come home.

But that's partially a mistake.

The children that come back from that town may look like their children, maybe sound like their children, but there is nothing familiar in their eyes.

It's Mabel and Dipper.

It's something far, far worse.

* * *

 **A/N:** I will be posting shorter chapters quicker, so expect another update in the next couple of days.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Two updates in two days? I'm on a roll. Sorry if the narrative doesn't make much sense, I'm not the best at writing in order.

* * *

It was two weeks after the barrier had gone up, and Dipper had been possessed three times so far.

He'd never regretted anything more than making that open-ended deal with Bill. The journal had told him, told him not to trust anyone or anything.

But he'd been desperate, so desperate, and he'd shaken that hand and he'd made a terrible, terrible mistake.

He woke up to the taste of blood in his mouth, and his sister bandaging his hands.

His fingers felt like someone had shoved a red-hot poker onto them. Even the slightest twitch made the fire pulse renewed.

Mabel noticed, looked up, smiled - something that still managed to get all the way to her eyes, despite what had no doubt been a traumatic night. "You're awake!" She patted his arm softly, finding a spot that didn't hurt all that much. "Grunkle Stan went to a town meeting. They're trying to figure out how to distribute food. Soos is watching us."

Turning his head - Dipper's neck hurt too, stiff like it'd been hit - he could see the large man dozing on the couch, a stained baseball bat only inches from his fingers.

"I'm so sorry." His hands were shaking. "I did this, I did this, I did this-"

"Dipper." There's a hardness there - in her voice, in her eyes - he doesn't think he's seen in awhile. Since they were in school, listening to mocking voices and picking up their scattered things. Getting shoved into lockers and running away. "None of this is your fault."

"I think it is." Dipper whispered, feeling the ache of his broken fingers. "I think I doomed us all."

* * *

The barrier goes down in the middle of October. It's on the news within hours, hundreds of people stumbling out from their prison, looking starved and scarred and scared. Whatever was locked in there too - monsters and beasts and creatures out of nightmares and childhood books - makes a run for it as well; anything to escape.

There's panic and chaos, people trying to flee the area and people trying to find their friends and family.

It's been the longest five months of Jack and Julia's life.

There's a terror they can not even begin to describe when they decide to dial Stanford. They'd been doing that off and on for months now, listening to the dial tone. But now that there is a possibility that someone will pick up. There's a possibility their children will be on the other end of that line.

They think of the blurry images of mangled corpses, hungry monsters, the people coming out of that war zone without eyes, limbs, their sanity.

They dial the phone.

And it tones on without answering.

* * *

Here's something important.

The day the barrier went up was the last time Stan Pines ever worked on the damn portal.

Fortunately for him, he didn't need to finish it.

* * *

Mabel hummed and hawed to herself as she flipped through the third journal. It was a strangely nice day, considering their part of the world had ended. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, the almost-ever present sound of creatures lurking in the woods was absent. Waddles was curled up next to her on the roof-top ledge, and she was careful to keep an eye on the yard, with it's newly-built makeshift fence.

She was not as obsessed with the journal as Dipper was. She'd read it, or read parts of it. She'd at least skimmed the titles of all the monsters, artefacts, scenarios and locations featured in it, even if she hadn't gotten the finer details. That was more Dipper's thing.

But still. The journal was chock full of information. Pages about something called the minescape. Spells and wards that her fingers itched to draw out. A hundred things that made _really great weapons_.

But she was looking for something specific.

Something that would save her brother.

Because when she closed her eyes, she saw Grunkle Stan pinning Dipper's arms to his side, trying to hold the struggling child while his eyes turned yellow and his mouth opened in an endless stream of laughter and screams.

Because when she closed her eyes, she could remember coming into the kitchen, seeing her brother rock back and forth, cackling like the Earth was about to split open, forks stuck in his arms and his legs and a _knife_ in his hand, yellow eyes locked with hers as he swung it down.

Because her brother woke screaming and crying every night, choking back tears and reaching for her, reaching, reaching-

But she could not touch, because they tied him down when he slept, just in case _things_ slithered into his head when she was sound asleep.

She stared at a picture of an amulet, faded ink capturing the likeness of a dented case that housed a gem supposedly strong enough to level a mountain. For a moment, hope flared and then-

 _I have destroyed this artifact and hidden the shards where no one can find them._

She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Kept her eyes open, because you didn't know what could sneak up on you when you closed your eyes. It'd only been a few weeks since the barrier had gone up, but she'd gotten strangely used to it already.

Waddles snuffled, shifted against her side. Out in the forest, something screamed. Something human, something not. Maybe dying, maybe hunting.

She had the sudden desire to break something and break it _hard_.

* * *

"Stan Pines."

Jack's been waiting five months for this moment, but his tongue feels swollen in his mouth. It's been almost a week since the barrier had gone now, and it's only now that the phone lines are back up.

"Stanford, this is Jack."

There's a silence on the other end of the line for a moment - almost too long, enough that Julia digs her fingers into his arm.

"Oh Jesus, Jack. Hey." Stan's voice sounds a bit surprised, like he's forgotten about something. "How are you?"

" _Where the hells are our kids._ "

"They're here." Stan seems too calm, all things considering. "They're alive."

 _Not fine._ Jack thinks. _Not okay. Not all right. Just_ alive.

"There's an airport near Bend." Jack says. "That's a few hours from where you are. We'll be there this evening."

"We don't really have a spare bedroom-" Stan starts.

"We are going to Bend." Jack snarls, wondering whose stupid idea it had been to send their children nearly five hundred miles away. "We're going to pick up our children. Then we're getting back on a plane and _leaving_."

"I don't know if that's a good ide-" Stan starts again.

Jack hangs up.

He doesn't realize until after he's been staring at the receiver for a few minutes, Julia silent next to him, that he hadn't thought to have Stanford put one of the kids on the phone.

* * *

Bill Cipher is dead.

Ford had never been a drinking man - not even in university - but he thinks now is a good time to start. The town might have dried up a couple of months ago for all he knows, but perhaps he can trade some of their more advanced wards for a bottle of something strong.

He's not entirely sure if he's going to celebrate or mourn, but he really wants to forget everything that's happened.

Still. He gets to watch as the barrier, their cage, begins to flicker red, yellow, blue. Begins to flicker and _crack_ , like a shattered window.

He gets to watch it disappear, freeing Gravity Falls, the surrounding lumberjack towns and the surviving people, monsters, creatures from the hell they've been trapped in these past few months.

He gets to watch as the last of Bill's energy is captured, redirected. The rift, the chasm that had been broken into the earth near the town's centre, is slowly stitched back up, the last lingering monsters screaming for mercy or blood as the nightmare realm on the other side is finally shut out. Fitting, he supposed. The bricks that had made up Bill's image were being used to board up the demon's damage.

The trees welcome him, as he stands aside from the crowd. The survivors of the onslaught of Gravity Falls had gathered for the final battle and now they stood cheering as the rift finally sealed. The last monsters were shot at in their pit, the ward they'd constructed at the beginning covering the entrance and ensuring that only one in every ten monsters escaped. The rest were stuck in their hole, withering on top of each other and dying by gunfire, arrow and the occasional spell.

The people of Gravity Falls had gotten very good with their magic.

The signs of the battle were everywhere; broken buildings, dead bodies, blood and pieces of people and monsters littering the ground. The people who had gathered were only a portion of the populace the town had once had. So many had died. Feasted upon by terror incarnated. Lack of proper medical attention. Starvation. Friendly fire. Deals gone wrong.

There had been a good two weeks when a neighbouring town had realized where the horrors were originating from, and they'd found themselves fighting against humans, instead of monsters. Everyone had suffered in that one.

He's torn from his thoughts, his electric rifle still turned on and in his hands, from a near-noiseless sound behind him. A feeling, more than anything.

The boy's there, when he turns.

 _He ignores the feeling of ice-cold fear at turning his back on a mob._

There are a lot of things Ford regrets. A hundred, thousand things. He regrets building his portal. He regrets giving up, on the other side. He regrets the fact that the first time he'd seen his brother in thirty years, he'd punched him _in the face_.

He regrets that he'd made so many mistakes that he'd missed out on the family that had grown up in his absence.

The boy looks as messed up and tired as Ford feels. He'd been one of the final casters, taking Bill down as much on the mindscape as on the physical plane. It shows in his pale skin, shaking limbs, exhausted expression. There's blood dripping from his nose, though there's no sign of bruising.

He's grown a bit, since Ford got here. He's lost a lot of weight - most of them have - and no amount of food had made him put it back on. He's been running and fighting, but there's no muscle. He's leaner than any thirteen year old had the right to be.

His eyes are so pale, Ford can barely see the irises or the pupils. There's a hum to him, like an electric charge building up for a finale.

"Dipper." Ford welcomes, and the kid takes it as the invitation it is, stepping close enough that Ford can rest one near-trembling hand on his sweat-soaked curls and pull his nephew into an awkward one-armed hug.

He's still pretty stuck on what to do with people, but he's been copying Stan when it comes to the niblings. He believes Mabel had described it as "faking it until you make it".

 _Awfully perceptive, that one._

"It's over." There's a tone to Dipper's voice Ford can't place. "He's really gone." The boy turned his head to the sky, as if to receive confirmation from something up there. "It's over."

"I suppose." The sky, when Ford looks at it, holds nothing beyond a clearness they'd missed, with the dome barrier tainting the view.

It was genuinely surprising that thirty odd years of fighting had ended here. Finally, he could breath.

"Grunkle Ford?"

"Yes?

"I-I don't feel well."

* * *

Stanley Pines has been dead for years. The only person left is a man who calls himself Stanford, despite the fact that he neither has twelve fingers or a PhD.

But Stan has gotten used to this song and dance by now. Slave away at his tourist trap, slave away at the portal. Try to pretend that he's someone he's not.

The longer it's been, the more he's slipped. He's more Stanley then Stanford at this point, but the people he's here to see haven't seen the real Stanford in over a decade, and they'd barely known him then.

He might be a con-man, but he didn't think it'd be this easy to fool his own family.

He's sitting in the Piedmont Mercy Hospital, black gloves faking an extra finger on each hand. Across the way from him is his younger brother, Shermy.

Shermy might be only a little over thirty, but his own teen pregnancy had gifted him with a son early. And now, they're sitting outside the maternity ward, waiting for Shermy's sixteen year old son to come out of the delivery room.

Like father, like son. Stan supposes. But he tries not to judge. He's just glad the next generation of Pines seems to be looking up.

A tired looking nurse comes out of the hall, wiping her hands on a cloth. "Pines and Brown families? You can come in now, if you'd like."

Stan trails behind Shermy, keeping an eye on Julia's parents. They don't look as pleased as Stan would be in their position, but then again, he supposes nobody wants their seventeen year old daughter to give birth.

He lingers near the back, feeling uncomfortable and out of place. Shermy keeps doing this - inviting him to places he doesn't have the right to be. He really shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be invading this.

"Stanford? You want to hold them?"

 _Them_?

Shermy's got two bundles in his arms, one wrapped in blue, the other in pink. Stan can see wisps of brown hair and button noses, eyes unfocused and reddened skin.

Twins.

They're twins.

Jack's talking enthusiastically to his soon to be in-laws. Something about the girl hitting the doctor in the face, and the boy having his umbilical cord around his neck.

The world is falling out from under him, the earth is shattering, that portal is starting back up and about to suck him into God knows what.

He still takes the babies from Shermy. Holds them awkwardly. Looks down at their innocent faces and thinks _Ford, Ford,_ _Ford_.

Maybe Shermy sees something in his face, because he turns his back, sort of leaving Stan with his tiny corner of the room and these tiny, tiny lives while everyone talks to the new parents.

"Hey kids." He chokes. "Welcome to the world."

The girl snuffles, opening her toothless mouth in a small yawn. She blinks up at him with vague newborn interest.

"Hit the doctor, huh? I bet you're going to be a fighter. The Pines could always use more of those." His words are barely above a whisper, but he knows once he leaves tonight, he may not see these kids again for who knows how long.

"And as for you, I think you'll be okay." He addresses the boy, whose eyes are still closed. He's the quiet one, by the looks of things. "You might have had a bit of a rough start, but you'll be okay."

 _Ford's eyes are wide with panic, his hands clawing through the air, the light behind him pulling him through. "Stanley! Stanley, help me!"_

"You two gotta promise me something." He whispers in their ears, hearing their soft breathing and quick heartbeats. "You gotta love each other, and you gotta forgive each other. Because nobody else is going to be there as much as you'll be there for each other. Don't make the mistakes I made.

"Please be alright."

* * *

 **A/N:** Apparently there was a Gravity Falls game released yesterday for the 3DS, and in it, Stan talked about how he was there when the twins were born. Apparently Mabel hit the doctor, and Dipper was born with his umbilical cord around his neck. So that made it in.


End file.
